Since Wheeler was socked in by cloud and frigid to boot I went down to the saddle and climbed this one instead of Jeff Davis. The skies only opened once I was on top of Bald but the view of Wheeler is exceptional from this peak.

Kessler wasn’t feeling well, so he didn’t make it very far up the trail. Kim, Shaylee, my dad, and I climbed Wheeler Peak on a very sunny and warm day. It was a beautiful climb and we spent quite a bit of time on time,

On the way down, I also did a side trip and climbed Bald Mountain. The rest of the group went straight to the campsite. Climbing Bald Mountain with Wheeler Peak made a good all day trip.

with the high trailhead and gentle terrain this is a good kid hike. My seven year old did well on this. I would recommend not following the Wheeler Peak trail all the way to the saddle. Instead, just follow the trail until you get to an open meadow and head up (the Wheeler Peak trail is unnecessarily winding and also caused us to have to cross several snowfields when we came down this way). The summit register is still a broken glass jar

Perfect afternoon family hike. I carried the 32-pound DayHikerJr in my arms most of the way, which of course adds a bit of work.

At around 10600 feet, we left the trail, taking a more-direct route up about 450 vertical feet to the ridge. Descending, we chose the standard route along the ridge because I was carrying a sleeping kid in my arms and could not see my feet to comfortably do the steep descent of our earlier shortcut. But I guess I could have gone either way because the ridge isn't exactly class-1 either.

The mileages were about 2.5 up and 3.3 down (from the Wheeler Summit trailhead).

Absolutely beautiful area with awesome views, not just from the summit, but on the way up as well. The glass jar for the summit register is cracked....hopefully someone reads this and will replace it. Thanks!

Since only half of the group felt like another peak, we didn't want to waste too much time and tagged on Bald Mountain on the way down from Wheeler Peak. There was a thunderstorm just north of Bald, so we took a few quick pics and quickly came down; it started sprinkling right as we reached the summit. The real rain only came when we were back at the trailhead.